Monday, October 3, 2011

month five

Miss Mila-May,

You are five months old and seriously the sweetest baby to ever live. You are such a joy to be around. You literally light up the room with your smile. You are very alert and mature, just like your sister. You are involved in every activity taking place in your presence and people are immediately drawn into your deep, intense eyes.

In the past week we started you on solids because you were showing all the signs of readiness. You can sit up, are very interested in our food, and mimic us while we eat. Your first food was pureed peas, followed by carrots, pear, and prune. You LOVE to eat, and only stop when the jar is empty. However, the new food caused trouble and we had to stop for a few days while your little intestines recovered. Even though you were ready, your little tummy wasn’t.

As if we didn’t already know this – solid food does not equal better sleep with the Weliwitigoda ladies. You weren’t sleeping well before solids, and you’re not sleeping well after. You may even be sleeping a little less well, if that is possible. We try swaddled, unswaddled, one-sided swaddle (so you can suck your thumb), etc. It doesn’t matter. You are awake at least every two to three hours, and nurse almost non-stop from midnight until about five or six. I really don’t know how I can even function given the lack of sleep, but just like I did with your sister – I will survive.

This month was also a test of my dedication to pumping. My goodness it is tough. Like, really, really tough. So tough that even I was starting to consider supplementing with formula, which I never expected. I was desperately close to supplementing – even bought a can of formula. You were taking three six-ounce bottles and I was pumping a total of 12 ounces during the day. As my frozen reserve dwindled down to nothing, I started to get nervous. I met with the lactation consultant who assured me you didn’t need to eat that much. So now you are taking two or three four ounce bottles a day, depending on when I last nurse you, along with one jar of baby food. It seems to be working for you, and it’s working for me. I still haven’t been able to build up much of a reserve given you nurse so often at night, but we’re making it work at the moment.

On pace with your sister – you are up on all fours and working a lurch/commando approach to crawling, the precursor to legitimate crawling. You can get everywhere you need to get, just don’t have the coordinated crawl down. Soon enough though.